In 1519, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan launched the expedition that completed the first circumnavigation of the globe. And so humanity learned the full extent of its world. This week, we learned from Science magazine that NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft — currently the man-made object farthest from Earth — crossed a boundary of the solar system and entered interstellar space sometime last summer. Like Magellan’s voyage, Voyager’s achievement is a major […]

Caroline Green, 45, from London, volunteered at an orphanage in Thailand Turned out children there were not orphans They had been sent their by families on promise of better life But were actually mistreated while money was made through volunteers Responsibletravel.com no longer offers orphanage volunteering trips Matthew Butler paid to volunteer at animal sanctuary in Costa Rica In fact it was a poorly run zoo and money wasn’t spent […]

Zookeepers at Qingdao Forestry Zoo in China were testing cubs’ instincts The young tigers and leopards did not seem to know how to hunt prey You might think that tiger cubs would be hard-wired to go after their prey aggressively from an early age. But when these wild-beasts-in-training were presented with a juicy rabbit, their predatory instincts seemed to fail them. The white rabbit simply jumped around their enclosure, eluding […]

Obama seeks support for attacking Syria while pursuing diplomacy President Barack Obama tried Tuesday to sell a military intervention he never wanted to an American public that opposes it, telling the nation that he needed authorization to attack Syria as leverage in a newly emerged diplomatic opening from Russia. Calling the United States “the anchor of global security,” Obama offered moral, political and strategic arguments for being ready to launch […]

Huang Huang has appeared at bus stop, in Chengdu, every day for last 15 He waits at stop, boards bus and sniffs every seat, trying to find master But so far, his master has not shown up, raising fears he was abandoned Now a local celebrity after commuter filmed tragic routine and put it online Every day for the last two weeks, Huang Huang the dog has repeated the same […]

An Indian court on Tuesday found four men guilty of the gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old woman on a bus in New Delhi last year — a crime that shocked the South Asian nation. The sentencing hearing for the four men — Vinay Sharma, Akshay Thakur, Pawan Gupta and Mukesh — will take place Wednesday, the Delhi court said. The outcry over the vicious attack convulsed India, prompting […]

This week, and the one that follows, could be the days that break a president. If Barack Obama escapes humiliation that will be enough – there is no sense that even victory in Congress will leave him in an enviable position. The next few days will see Mr Obama stripped, all the flaws of his presidency on display, all the strengths of his personality strained to their limit. His dazzling […]

The US space agency (Nasa) is about to launch its latest mission to the Moon. The unmanned LADEE probe is set to lift-off from the Wallops rocket facility on the US east coast at 23:27 local time (03:27 GMT on Saturday). Its $280m (£180m) mission is to investigate the very tenuous atmosphere that surrounds the lunar body. It will also try to get some insights on the strange behaviour of […]

Virgin Galactic’s SS2 as become the highest commercial winged vehicle and it flexed its ‘feather system’ for the first time The spacecraft was propelled 69,000 feet above the Earth’s surface after a 20 second rocket burn to reach a top speed of Mach 1.43 The spacecraft was piloted by Mark Stucky and Clint Nichols The company said it is ‘on track’ to offer commercial flights into space to members of […]

Maxime, a 59-year-old monk, lives on top of Katshki Pillar in Georgia He has to scale a 131ft ladder if he wants to come down Followers winch supplies up to him because he only leaves the pillar twice a week Maxime decided to make a change in his life after a stint in prison It takes a strong mind and a lot of willpower to become a monk and feel […]